MCC Unites Plans A Week of Activities The Following Month

Brandon Evans, Live Wire Staff Writer

Project “MCC Unites” is an original project being structured by the Student Government (SGA) staff members Wes Tsegai, Nadira Smith, Keyarra Forbes, Brian Washington, Kweku Aidoo, and Sharifa Lowen. The project is in response to the anger felt by MCC students, as well as students in other universities, and the citizens of the United States on recent social injustices carried out, mainly by law enforcement. An example of a social injustice case would be the Ferguson, MO case involving the shooting of bystander, Michael Brown and Police Officer Darren Wilson.

There are two sides to every story and when it comes to the Ferguson incident, students at MCC have two different opinions on how people are responding. When the judge ruled in favor of Darren Wilson, people of Ferguson, as well as citizens and students, responded with misdirected and blind anger. The project “MCC Unites” hopes to dedicate a week to enriching MCC students and staff about the different points of social justice.

The basic idea behind Project “MCC Unites” is dedicating a week to teaching people what social justice is through unbiased opinions and showing both sides to the issue by the day.

The first day of the “MCC Unites” project is going to be themed, “What is Social Justice?” The day will be carried out in two panels and a public broadcast. The first panel will be moderated by a sociologist, news reporter and a historian, where they will focus on what social justice is and how to spot and address social injustice.
The second panel will be moderated by a defense lawyer, civil lawyer, a state representative, historian and a prosecutor who will all focus on the legal process in situations of social injustice, covering what goes on in the court rooms i.e. trials and indictments.

These panels will be interesting to attend as the moderators will give insight as to what social justice has looked like in the past, what it looks like through media as of recent, and how people view and change the meaning of social justice as time progresses. Both of these panels will take place on the first floor lobby.

At noon on March 2, there will be a Serial podcast broadcasted to the public called “This American Life,” which will be a podcast that explains cases of social justice and injustice, and analyzes the information from each case.
Tuesday’s theme will be “Breaking Barriers,” which will be an ongoing social experiment that will continue on throughout the day, in which we all present at least two ribbons to any random person of choosing and telling them why we appreciate them, encouraging to do the same to someone else of their choice with the second ribbon.

There will be a Breaking Barriers Workshop that will attempt to inform students of common stereotypes while simultaneously attempting to break those stereotypes. The workshop will be run by student and SGA representative, Nadira Smith. Students and staff will also be running a community fair, where leaders and organizations on campus will have booths set up, providing information about community leadership opportunities. Those booths will also provide information regarding voter registration and how to contact the political leaders during the fair. Finally, there will also be a community leader panel, featuring community leaders that will reiterate their tactics on making changes in the community.

Half way through the week of the “MCC Unites” project on Wednesday, the theme will be “Misdirected Anger Solves Nothing,” dedicated to expression, people refocusing and controlling their tensions and expressions. On that day, there will be card signings for the MCC police, community yoga taking place in the student lounge, social injustice and art by Professor Olivia Chiang, history of protest music from Dr. Debra Simmons, and finally, Open Mic Night in the Cougar Café, located near the registrar office.

“Respect The Blue” is the theme for Thursday. It will be a day in which we show our gratitude and respect to the police force at MCC and in our local communities. There will be Criminal Justice activities from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the student lounge. Located in the East/West gym, there will be a basketball pick-up game consisting of police officers and students, going on from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Finally, that day at 5:00 p.m., there will be pizza, soda and concessions, courtesy of the MCC Criminal Justice Club.
On Friday, there will be a “Tribute To Lives Lost,” with events only in the afternoon. At 3:30 p.m. located at MCC on Main, there will be numerous events such as, “Tracey Mind Evolution Caldwell, Breakdance Team, Lumanari, and Deb Simmons teaches the MCC Unites Song.”

At 5:00 p.m., there will be a march down to town hall, where the march will end with words from a speaker that commences upon arrival to town hall. Finally, at 6:00 p.m., participants of the march have the choice of eating and shopping at the local businesses. By doing so, you help further unify and help the community.